


The the dark rooms where we both have sat

by laminated_newspaper



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: I've just got a lot of emotions about the panther mech, M/M, minor counter/weight spoilers, nobody likes Clementine Kesh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26890183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laminated_newspaper/pseuds/laminated_newspaper
Summary: Metal holds the memories like a kitchen sponge holds harmful germs. It's a good thing that Clementine Kesh has never listened to heretical whispers and has never washed a plate.
Relationships: Addax Dawn/Jace Rethal, Clementine Kesh & Gur Sevraq
Kudos: 8





	The the dark rooms where we both have sat

**Author's Note:**

> This is incredibly self-indulgent lol

A silent night on a reconnaissance mission was when Clementine first heard the recordings speak. There might have been calls before that, but she didn’t remember them if there had been.  
It wasn’t unheard of for something to break the silence during these missions, Leap and Ver’Million’s willful forgetfulness to turn of their comms had been an ongoing battle many times already.  
She’d heard a whole manner of things about their lives while eavesdropping. From talk of meals at the prison, to talk of crushes, impromptu lessons on everything from shiv construction to pickpocketing, and sometimes the pitiless insulting of whatever person they’d deemed worthy of insulting that evening. She tended to break it up when it became the fourth option, tersely telling them to pay attention to whatever they’re doing, and sometimes it worked. They’d shut up for a while, barring giggles of course.  
So naturally, when the comms channel opened, she expected a greeting from one of her subordinates or a coarse joke at her expense, but certainly not the transmission that came instead.  
“Officer Kenridge, Officer Kenridge. This is special ops Rethal requesting permission to open communication now that the fight is over.” A boyish voice clearly annunciated. Clem jumped in her seat, gripping the steering controls.  
Before she had any time to respond beyond an undignified squawk, another responded. “Jace, you wild bastard, don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again! You nearly made me shit myself!” A woman’s voice, deep and resonating. Obviously a commander, Clem felt put on the spot without even being the focus of the shouting. “That was goddamn insane, and you know it.”  
“That’s why they call me the best pilot in the galaxy!” Followed by a laugh.  
Perplexed by the conversation, she stayed silent. Clementine’s sensors hadn’t picked up any new mechs in the area, but the tides had been high that week anyway and she wasn’t confident in anything.  
“Well I don’t know who “they” are, Rethal, but I call you dumb as hell! What was that?! Going after that whole platoon?! You could’ve died!”  
“I could have I guess. I wasn’t thinking about that.”  
“I thought so! You weren’t thinking!”  
“Aw come on Tea...” the male voice whined, neither of them sounded much older than her. Perhaps they might have even been younger.  
“Don’t you ‘aw come on Tea’ me! You’re great at overthinking until it’s time to divert that attention to self preservation! Then it’s a goddamn lack of braincells!”  
“Now se-“ The boys voice began respond with something but abruptly cut off, surprising Clem almost as much as when the conversation started. The line didn’t close immediately however, it sputtered perennial chatter before shutting off completely.  
“Wait one second.” Clem muttered as she opened the comms again. “Officers Kenridge and Rethal, I heard your transmission, respond in kind with your location. This is Stel Kesh’s territory, state your business.” She commanded into the Panther’s mic.  
The static continued for a few wavering seconds before it broke.  
“What’d you say princess?” Million’s voice responded with her usual bored drawl.  
“Did you hear the transmission as well Debutant?” Clem responded, sighing with frustration.  
“I don’t think so?” Million shot back.  
“Not me either!” Leap butted in, accompanied but his loud sounds of chewing into the mic. “What’d you hear princess? Was it rebels? Was it ghooosts?”  
“Quiet Ring bearer.” Sovereign Immunity said. “What did you hear?”  
“I don’t know.” Clementine sighed. “It sounded like a conversation, two pilots, saying something about a fight, they cut off though.”  
“The toughs and I can check the surrounding area. We’ll be right back.” Sovereign Immunity volunteered.  
Another chewing noise to match Leap’s entered the conversation “What?!” AO shouted.  
“You’re coming with me kid.” Was the response, and Clem just sat back and let it happen. She muted her comms with a little wish of luck, and slumped in her chair.  
“Do you think it was ghosts or alive people?” Leap asked, still on the call.  
“I just think missy Clementine has a drone up her bonnet and is hearing things now.” Responded Million with a tell tale tone that this was going to be another full length conversation in the comms call.  
Clementine sighed and rubbed a hand over her face.

***

No matter how hard she tried to figure out what that transmission had been Clementine couldn’t find it. The search party had found no nearby pilots and Sovereign Immunity had politely suggested she get some sleep.  
It was weeks before she heard another voice.

***

Millie had said something about how important sleeping in a mech could be. That it was something that old pilots used to do to improve synchronicity with movements and such. It wasn’t something she could confirm on the Palace, but Millie seemed adamant. These supposed pilots, thousands of years in the past, would eat, sleep, and spend all hours in their mechs, developing an attachment to them as they’d do for one of their own limbs. In both divines and the precursors to troops pilots would be less likely to fumble maneuvers and more likely to “really burn with the radon” as Millie put it.  
Clem couldn’t spend all day in the panther, she didn’t have the time or desire, but deemed it a fun idea to finish some of her knitting projects in the cockpit instead of the blue parlor of the palace.

The Rapid Evening’s hangar was cramped and uncomfortable if someone wanted to walk around on the floor. The Panther was always the same size as ever though, enough cockpit for two or three people if they squeezed.  
It was a few minutes after the last person left for the night when she heard the transmission. Unlike the last one, this transmission was clearer. As if it was recorded from inside the cockpit, instead of a long distance conversation between two people.  
“I’ll give you five creds if you punch Ibex...”  
Clementine jumped in her chair, at the same time, hearing another person gasp in shock. It was a strange feeling, to hear a person being surprised when she was as well.  
“Ha sok! You came out of nowhere!” Another voice laughed. A little nervous and apologetic, she could almost hear them rubbing the back of their head.  
The voice of the other person was loud, the kind of voice of someone who’d never whispered a day in their life. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. You’d think with me being the size of a blue whale I’d be louder, but I’ve always been really quiet when I walk.” They let out a abrasive chuckle.  
“It’s no problem Sokrates! I’ve been a little jumpy lately too.” It was certainly officer Rethal speaking, she’d spent a while thinking about what he sounded like since the first time she heard him.  
“It’s because of that bastard isn’t it? I can’t believe we ever let him on this mission.”  
“I want it to work out, but I’d be lying if I said that Ibex doesn’t put me on edge.” A little awkward silence filled the cockpit, Clem could hear herself breathe. Rethal continued, “I can’t punch him though, I know you offered.”  
The other person, the one named Sokrates, continued. “No? I mean, I certainly can’t. They’ve got me on the ‘make sure the fish doesn’t punch anyone watch’ but you could do it.” Sokrates seemed like an instigator, Clementine didn’t like them one bit.  
“I’m sure if an Orion soldier punched a Candidate it’d ruffle some of the wrong feathers.”  
“Oh please, you’re better than some ‘Orion soldier’ you’re the hottest pilot this side of the branch!” Clementine could almost picture the hand gestures they were making.  
“Exactly! I punch Ibex and it would start another war.”  
Oricon soldier... it took Clementine a moment to catch it. Perhaps these people were working for Stel Orion? She wished she’d payed attention in history lessons instead of passing notes with Gucci. Wasn’t Oricon one of the ancient names for Stel Orion? She’d have to research it later, when the conversation between the two voices ended.  
“If Addax punched him it wouldn’t start a war.” Sokrates muttered. Another name into the mix that Clementine felt sounded familiar.  
“Like Addax would punch anybody, the guy is a honey heart!” Rethal sighed.  
“Well Jace, could you seduce him into punching Ibex?”  
Rethal responded all too soon “Don’t you even joke about that. Tea tried that approach with me and if I ever have to hear the words masculine wiles come out of her mouth ever again I’ll fling myself out of an airlock.” He made a mock gagging noise.  
Sokrates let out a bellow of a laugh, making Clementine jump in her seat again, dropping her knitting. “Ha! Oh Elidions I love that woman.” They cackled.  
“That’s because you don’t have to sleep in the same ship as her.”  
“Probably.”  
As she scrambled to grab her needles off the floor before she lost any stiches, Clementine heard the transmission shut off. She groaned in frustration and she rose the the control panel.  
Pressing buttons and tuning dials gave nothing else. She signed and flipped off the control board. The cockpit submerged in silence and darkness.  
These were recordings, not only transmissions. She had the feeling these people weren’t being picked up on radio waves, but rather being sent to her specifically.

***

The time she spent thinking about the transmissions exponentially increased after the second one. How could she not? She wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery, who was Officer Rethal? what were the transmissions? Who was sending them? Why was she receiving them?  
She found the answer to the first question at least. Not long after she began to search.  
Jace Rethal was the first pilot of the Panther, the digital tomes told her. Miles back into the server libraries of the winter palace she’d ridden on the rickety rail cart as millions of trillibytes of data passed her by. She’d sat (sort of) patiently at the little desk as a synthetic librarian displayed her question in his dusty monitor.  
The librarian, who’d introduced himself as “Meticulous Mood” had a blatantly synthetic voice, almost embarrassing for Clem to hear “Jace Rethal was an earthling variant of human. Member of the Rapid Evening for roughly two decades. Obtaining his doctorate from the university of Seich he published eleven papers that are preserved in records. He is classified as the first pilot of the Panther class mech. He is also hailed as one of the first to be considered a st-“  
“He was what?!” Clementine had slammed her hands on both sides of the monitor, sending up clouds of dust.  
“He was an earthling variant of hu-“ he began to reply.  
She interrupted him before he could finish “I heard that part, I’m talking about the part about the Panther mech!”  
“He was the pilot of the Panther mech for what the records say was roughly four years. The first recorded owner of the mech until it was acquisitioned by house-“  
“That’s all I need to know.” Clem cut him off. “Thank you for your help Mr. Mood, I’m leaving now.”  
She hadn’t stayed to hear his response, marching back to her exit cart as fast as possible.

***

Millie always hit too rough in training exercises. She and the stray dog didn’t seem to know how to pull and punches, and while that was nice on the battlefields, Clem was finding herself three hits away from a concussion.  
“Am I being too gentle with the princess?” Millie called over the comms, obviously suppressing laughter. Clementine hated how much her subordinates seemed to love mock combat.  
In full honesty, she had almost thought the transmission was an auditory hallucination from her whiplash scrambled brain before anything else.  
It started with Perrenial chatter before flattening out into the voice of a young man. “Uh hey Jace, it’s me. I’m not even sure if I’ll delete this, it’s so silly. I was just thinking of you though, I mean the both of us together and stuff.” The man seemed to be mumbling, and beneath that what a strange noise sounding like a lot of people whispering far away from the microphone.  
Clementine held her hands steady on the controls, cursed “what the fuck is this?” she tried to turn up the volume to figure out what the guy was saying. 

The man continued, his voice wavering “I know you’re on shore leave now and I know that if something like this ever got discovered by someone like Ibex we’d both go under for treason or something. This totally has more cons than pros I guess. I was just thinking about what you said yesterday and what a dick I was. Loving comes easy to you, and that’s such a beautiful thing. It’s really hard for me to say this kind of stuff.”  
Addax laughed ruefully while Clementine barely avoided another punch from the Stray Dog. It was getting harder and harder to pay attention to both the fight and the seemingly private confession she was listening in on.  
“I don’t really know what to do with myself when you look at me because it feels like I’m going to explode. It makes it super hard to talk about emotions, so I’m saying it all here. There’s something I want to tell you and-” the recording began to fade as he continued talking.  
“What the fuck?” Clementine cried, slapping the monitor in front of her “Don’t crap out on me now!”  
a solid punch from the stray dog finally connected with the cabin, sending the Panther skipping like a rock across the floor of the training ground.  
Addax continued, unheeding of the rattled audience he spoke to. “Oh, this feels so idiotic. I just wanted to get all the words out while they’re fresh in my mind.” He took a deep breath like a swimmer before diving. “You remind me of a star sometimes. Not like the stars we see outside the windows every day for the past few months, but the idea of seeing a star up close. Like when you’re a kid and you learn what a star is for the first time and you try to imagine what a ball of pure elements on fire could possibly look like. Immense, swirling light with all of this energy behind it just bringing life to planets and stuff. I mean like how two nights ago, when you showed me that storage closet that no one uses. It felt like some pulp romance novel, and when you turned out the fluorescent lights, I thought you just might glow on your own.”  
Clementine sighed and checked her bruised skull. The cockpit seemed to be fine overall, but she didn’t run diagnostics for fear of stopping the current confessional she got to eavesdrop on.  
“You were just so sweet about it all and I’m really sorry for fucking it all up by being like I am. It feels scarier than every battle combined just to lay down with you and let myself be held. You didn’t do anything wrong, I know you automatically assume you do, but this is definitely not that. This is a problem with me, I promise you. I’m not sure how and when you’re gonna receive this. I’m recording this to the panther and hopefully, it will give this to you, and maybe you’ll know how I feel. I really want to try to work this out with you. I’d like to talk to you more about this in person. We need to be careful though, the closer we get to Weight the harder it’s going to be to find time to talk.” he signed “Alright, talk to you soon hopefully, love you, bye. I mean wait, no, I didn’t mean to say that yet, panther don’t save that one wai-“  
The noise cut out. Clementine sat dumbfounded in her seat, hands still gripping the controls. 

“Hey Princess!” Millie’s voice crackled through the intercom as the worst interruption of silence “you gonna continue with the exercises or just keep chilling on the ground like that?” She paused “Did I actually kill you this time?” her voice sounded a little too hopeful for the princess’ liking.  
“Shut the fuck up.” Clementine hissed, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Why don’t you go bother Leap for a minute?”  
“Hey! What in the wave is your problem lady? I’m no-” Ver’million managed to respond before Clem turned her attention back to the recording. She turned off the external comms and sat, gripping the controls with white knuckles.  
Eventually, Clementine loosened her grip on the controls and fell back against the seat, unbuckling herself. The far off clatter of Million and the stray dog was blessedly muffled by the Panther’s hull. She was about to get back out of the cockpit when the communications light blinked on once more. She sat, looking at it dumbfounded.

Jace’s voice called out “Soundcheck soundcheck, It’s alright. We’re doing great Panther, don’t make that noise at me.” He paused, and in the back of the recording, Clem could hear an explosion. “That’s not something you hear every day, huh Panth? All these space fights have got us used to no sound with our explosions, but it’s alright.”  
He continued “It’s alright, it’s alright. We’re gonna finish up this dumb fight and head back to the fleet and take a week long nap. We’re gonna be fine and Tea is gonna yell at us like she usually does.” A pause “Or not us I guess, you never get blamed. Maybe it’s because I’m the pilot, I’m always the one that’s expected to act my age. It’s rude frankly, I never asked to live this long anyway.”  
Clementine couldn’t tear her eyes away from the blinking com light. The silence was all encompassing for Clementine, but she could hear the ghosts of explosions in the background of the audio.  
“Oh I hope Sokrates and Addax saw that flip.” Jace continued “You know how the two of them always love the stunts. I wonder if Addax misses doing tricks because of Peace’s sluggishness? I don’t think Peace could move his feet two meters without Addax helping him.” he laughed “that’s Diasporan divines for you.”  
There was a horrible screeching noise that Clementine should have been worried about, but couldn’t tell if it was a recording or in the present.  
“Did you see that?” Jace scoffed “he almost hit us with that swing! I swear Peace is Definitely trying to kill us. No joke.”  
“This is totally sabotage!” he huffed “I’m ninety-five percent sure that he’s only doing this because he figured out about Addax and I. He’s a menace. Half the attacks I’m dodging seem to be from his big metal ass” Jace’s voice turned softer. “Don’t worry though, I won’t let him get you little panther. We’re better together than any divine.”

She couldn’t tell if the Panther was humming in the recording or humming to her now.  
Like the humming of a human, the Panther’s humming was deep and resonant. It was so mesmerizing that it took a few seconds for her to notice the recording had ended, replaced instead by Perennial chatter. Its chittering sounded similar enough to the sound of radio static, but she knew it held no meaning besides that of the occult.  
Clementine sat for a while, waiting for it to continue, waiting for any more information. Nothing more of importance filtered through the chatter. She gritted her teeth before shakily standing up in the slanted cockpit. She still hadn’t righted anything from her fall, so wires hung around her like depressing party streamers and the side opening hatch was above her like a skylight.  
Before she could open the hatch herself, another pair of hands opened in for her. The respectively round and angular faces of AO Rooke and Exeter Leap obscured the opening. “Princess? Are you alright in there?” Called AO, obviously not seeing her.  
Clementine shouted, making the other pair jump. “Of course I’m perfectly fine. Why would I be in any state otherwise?”  
The pair blinked down at her before AO said “Well,” he looked at leap with a questioning glance before responding. “Millie said you were acting a bit out of sorts.”  
“She didn’t phrase it like that, did she?”  
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Leap interjected, derailing the conversation “Millie thought she might really have fucked you up.” he poked his head down the opening, looking around like he didn’t believe her answers.  
“I already told you I’m fine, now get out of the way so I can get out of this hunk of metal.” She pushed Leap out of the way and stood on the top of her chair to shimmy out the hatch and into the open training grounds. Leap was always the first to leave, and sure enough, the thief had already slid down to the ground by the time Clementine settled on her mech’s hull. AO meanwhile, sat still and ran his hand along the metal rivets.  
“This is the Panther mech right?” he murmured, a weird kind of reverence peeking his facial expression “You probably shouldn’t leave it like this, a stressed position might degrade the inputs for gross motor coordination.” He didn’t look at her directly, just kept staring at the dark hull.  
Clementine sighed “You put it away Rooke if you care that much about it.” she began to climb down the panther’s arm. She didn’t care what kind of facial expressions AO made, but she could hear the excitement in his voice when he responded.  
“Okay!” He jumped into the cockpit feet first, probably the fastest she’d ever seen him move for anything. “Do you wanna spot me, Leap?”  
The thief called back “Yes please!” He twirled and struck a pose as Clementine shuffled by “Show me how this baby really flies!”  
The pair ignored her as she left the stupid hangar, rubbing her sore head and cursing stupid Jace and his stupid transmissions. 

***

Gur Sevraq had excellent bedside manner, they ought to have joined a doctoring thing or some such. Even though Clementine had trouble formulating thoughts and sentences, the little synthetic spent hours by her bedside reading stories and having one sided conversations.  
Clementine couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this sick, but knew that Crysanth hadn’t been there and that she would not be there this time.  
Gur was there though, in an old dress of hers as blue as a snowmelt lake. The dress had bows and lace and little flowers made of folded ribbon, a thing for a preteen princess that somehow also worked for them. Amazingly, he looked gorgeous in it, like more of a classical princess than she’d ever been. The light streaming in from the windows made her feel like a extra in a painting; the nameless infirm being visited by an ethereal Gur Sevraq in a flouncy dress.  
“Have you heard of Jace Rethal, princess? He’s an archaic hero alas, but was once a member of the organization from which your own squad is named for.” Gur murmured in their calm and steady voice. They had a massive paper tome spread across their lap.  
Clem nodded. They’d been talking about Kesh heroes for hours, but Jace was one that they hadn’t talked about yet.  
The prophet constantly sounded like they were giving a sermon, even in the most casual of conversations. He talked slowly and enunciated every word as though it were his last. “He may have started out his interactions with Kesh as a war hero, however among Kesh politicians and academics he fought for equality among the classes, and personal rights for synthetics. How strange to live in a world where sentient beings are not seen as sentient.” They paused for emphasis. “He fought for a world in which voices could be heard and sentient beings could be treated with respect. The galaxy did not know differently, they could not see a future which they could not comprehend. How noble to fight for radical ideas of freedom and autonomy for others.”  
“Wasn’t he the pilot-“ Clem mumbled, stopping to catch her breath halfway “-the first pilot of the Panther mech?” She felt so weak.  
Gur sighed “Yes princess, that too. In his youth, he was a soldier in the golden branch war. I believe he fought Apostalos with his comrades.” He flipped a page mumbling to himself “With one of his future spouses too it seems, I wonder if there’s a star crossed tale behind that.”  
“I’d fight Stel Apostalos too if I could get out of bed.” Clementine let out the kind of forced laugh that didn’t hurt her chest to do.  
Gur clicked their mandibles in what Clem knew was disappointment “Not the Stel, Apostalos as the civilization. It has existed for many many centuries as many different types of governments. The current Stel iteration of the culture is merely a blip in its long and vibrant history. There is always shift in governments and culture when people feel as though there are injustices.”  
Clem didn’t have the strength to respond, she just let the words wash over her, grateful to have some company.  
“I fly the Panther you know.” She mumbled.  
“I had assumed it was probably still around, Kesh does love to preserve the past.” They chuckled “when they can preserve Past that is.”  
Clem hummed in agreement, the pun flying over her head. “The panther is a good hollow.”  
“I wonder if it misses its pilot.” The prophet mused. Using a finger to scratch at their chin.  
“I’m its pilot.” Clem haphazardly pushed someone stray hairs out of her face and back into the headscarf she’d tied for Gur’s visit. It took hours for attendants to braid her hair, and she had no desire to sit up for that long.  
Gur gave another click of disappointment “I wonder if it misses Jace Rethal, the first pilot to ever bring it to the battlefield.” They hung their head. “To be kept by so many, all with conflicting motives and ideals. I wonder if the Panther longs for its stellar pilot. A person who gave it such love, who used it to try and set things right, even if he didn’t succeed.”  
Clem didn’t respond, partly because she felt as though Gur was insulting her, but she couldn’t figure out how. Hollows didn’t have emotions, hollows didn’t miss things. Emotions on a war machine was a ridiculous idea, what use did sentimentality have on a battlefield?  
“To care about comrades is a valuable trait.” Sighed Gur, making Clem wonder if she’d been thinking aloud.

She dreamt about Jace Rethal one night when she was still bedridden. She was standing in a massive spaceship hangar, something that looked like design from a museum. Little puffs of steam emanated from a pipe next to her. There was water dripping from another with a corresponding bucket beneath it. Jace was squatting on the hull of a mech, not four feet away, crouched over an open access hatch.  
He was smaller than she imagined him to be. His voice sounded like it belonged to someone who could fill up a room, tower over their foes. Jace just looked like a regular person probably younger than her, acne on his back and black hair poking out from under the bandana he wore.  
“What’s next?” He called down into the hatch.  
A voice answered back, Clementine couldn’t hear it.  
Jace must have heard it though, as he reached a hand into a toolbox by his side and tossed down a rudimentary looking soldering pen.  
Clementine could tell it was a dream because she didn’t feel the temperature. Jace was obviously sweating, even in the shorts we was wearing.  
Another person was crawling up the side of the mech, a short woman with her greying blond hair in braids. She wasn’t dressed for the high temperature, that was evident, her face as red as an apple. Her suit was smart though, Clementine could appreciate that.  
“Rethal.” The woman sputtered “Rethal, this is insane, why is it so damn hot in here?”  
Jace helped her up to the shoulder where he sat. “Sorry Nat, I think they’re still fixing the temp-control units for this hangar, you know how we’re understaffed.”  
Nat, as Clementine understood her to be, huffed a sigh, taking off her blazer “And Tea is still doing this?”  
Jace nodded “The Queen is her baby, what can I say?” He shrugged before gesturing in Clementine’s direction “If something happened to the Panther I’d be doing the same thing, and she’d be helping out.”  
“I’ll never understand you idiots.” Nat mumbled before leaning in the access hatch and shouting “how’re you doin’ down there you dumb fuck?”  
“Natalya.” Jace scoffed “that’s gonna go to the swear jar.”  
Something was shouted back up. Making Jace sigh and Natalya laugh.  
“That’s what she gets for soldering inside an enclosed space in this heat.“ she looked over her shoulder towards Clementine. “You’d better start covering the Panther’s ears.”  
Jace sighed, looking at Natalya. “Despite what they say, you techs have no class.”  
“I’m not taking that from the man who’s only wearing shorts and mag-grip boots.” Natalya dismissed, scooting herself back over to where she’d climbed up. “I just wanted to see how you idiots were doing, I’m leaving before I melt.”  
“Leaving so soon?” he laughed “don’t you want to help with the soldering?”  
Natalya paused on the ladder to give Jace a quick hand motion that Clem could only assume was a profane gesture.  
One last thing was shouted from the hole in the mech before Natalya climbed down the side, and Jace waved with a little “Yeah, what she said! Bring snacks next time! Bye!”  
“Only if you pay me!” Natalya called as she slipped out of sight.

She drifted in and out of dreams before she awoke in bed. It took her seconds to realize it wasn’t hers. The bed was smaller, with rougher sheets and in a smaller room. Bookshelves lined the walls, a potted plant flourished in the sunlight of the window sill. The sounds of a city filtered in through an open window, its curtains moving in the wind as she watched them.  
Clementine found she could roll over, her gut didn’t hurt. Staring at her from across the room was Jace Rethal, not the Jace she’d seen before, but one much older, with a modest beard and new scars. He wore a traditional Kesh robe, soft blues and grays with folds of fabric scrunched so he could sit in a chair properly.  
“Clementine of Kesh.” He said, face stoic in the way she assumed held back anger. “You make me so upset, Clementine of Kesh.”  
She tried to sit up and discovered she could. “We pilot the Panther.” She mumbled.  
Jace stayed seated. She couldn’t bear to look at him, instead staring at the bookshelves in front of her.  
“I piloted the Panther, you climb into the cockpit and embarrass yourself.” He responded.  
“We pilot the panther.” Clementine repeated.  
“Do you know the names of your subordinates? Would you care if your squad died? Would they care if you died?” He kept talking. “I fought beside friends and lovers at best and enemies at worst. Do you know who you fight alongside? You kill enemies of the principality, but do you know the beings whose lives you hold in your hands?”  
“I am part of the rapid evening, I pilot the Panther.”  
Jace scoffed in a proper way, the way that disappointed professors did “I fought for the Rapid evening. Learn its meaning Clementine; you do not exist in a vacuum, you are not the first of your kind.” She could feel his eyes boring into her soul. “The Rapid Evening kills those who follow it, it always has and will continue to.”  
“What do I do?” She mumbled, “Everything I do I fail.”  
“I’d say not to force prisoners of war to be your personal warriors and don’t start wars, but that might be too much to ask at this point in your life.” He sighed and scratched at his beard. “Care about the people you fight alongside. Their lives rest in your hands, you have to treat them with respect. Do that at least, please.”  
“I’m going to be the Queen of Kesh you know?” She said, half like a question and half like an assertion “I’m going to be a beloved ruler and then you’ll see. There will be masses of admirers at my coronation.” Her fists tightened in the blankets.  
Jace let out a long, air depressurizer of a sigh “If that’s so, then I image that they’ll also attend your beheading.”  
Thrown of kilter by his rebuttal, Clementine tried to respond, but couldn’t think of anything to say.  
The waking world came rushing back to her then. She didn’t even have time to come up with a response to Jace.  
Her bed was hers again, lush and soft, filled with all her favorite pillows. Light filtered through her window blinds. Gur Sevraq sat napping in one of her chairs, a book balanced precariously on their lap. At least she was pretty sure he was sleeping, it was always hard to tell with those compound eyes.  
Clementine sighed and sat up, pushing her blankets out of the way. Slowly and carefully, so as not to wake them, she lifted the book from Gur’s lap and placed the bookmark inside as she moved to the bedside table.  
She fell back into the pillows, tired despite the fact she’d only just woken up. She let herself sink into the pillows. This was definitely going to be tough....

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the entirety over the course of a few months while waiting for doctor's appointments. If you're reading this doctor W, please get better at time management. Only one of us has been to medical school, and I shouldn't have to wait an hour for an appointment every time I need more anxiety medication. I mean, thanks for helping me write fanfic, but also please stop inconveniencing me. I'm a working girl and I don't want to squander my free days waiting for you to allow me to take meds I know I need.


End file.
